Roboception GmbH - Technologie-Startup des Jahres

Company: Roboception GmbH, München, BayernCompany Description: Roboception was founded in March 2015 as a spin-off of the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and offers innovative navigation, real-time perception and manipulation solutions for robotic systems. The company is partnered with KUKA. It currently has 15 employees, and has recently gained the Photonics 4.0 Award in the CODE_n startup Contest 2016.Nomination Category: Kategorien Unternehmen / Organisationen AwardsNomination Sub Category: Technologie-Startup des Jahres

Roboception GmbH offers innovative navigation, real-time perception and manipulation solutions for robotic systems. 3D technologies such as object localization, recognition and scene analysis, robotic manipulation and application development complete the portfolio. The solutions include highly intuitive, user-friendly interfaces, parametrization and programming, hence a detailed robotic knowledge is not required for setup and operation.

Vision in robotics is a challenging problem. Current solutions do not even the visual capabilities of a two year old child. Still, very strong expertise is required to setup of the solutions so that non-experts cannot perform this task. Furthermore, environment must be engineered and adapted in order to achieve robust and reliable operation of vision systems. This requires individual engineering which results in high cost and restricted versatility. Lastly, camera solutions and lasers usually come at high price for the sensor only so that in combination with the engineering cost automation is not feasibly especially for small batches.

We founded Roboception on March 4th, 2015 to tackle these challenges and make robot vision applicable to a wide range of existing and novel applications. It is our mission to make it feasible for our customers to equip each of their current or future robots with our solutions and enable them to perceive their environment. Apart from the unprecedented robustness of our low-cost industrial-grade 3D sensor and the fact that we cover the complete value chain of “Sense.Reason.Act.”, what is truly unique about our product is the usability through non-experts. We have been working very closely from the first line of code together with interaction designers in order to achieve this challenging goal. Thus, our robotic applications are ready-to-use so that our customers can directly generate value in automating previously manual processes in their production. Our solution can be applied to literally any robotic system, from mobile manipulators to robot navigation in unstructured environments.

The company has partnered with KUKA, one of the largest world manufacturers of robots, for developing a solution for 3D-perception of their industrial robots. KUKA has also demonstrated their trust in our competences by becoming a shareholder of our company. For KUKA, our solutions will be a key to addressing new market segments that require more flexible robotic systems – in particular in the general manufacturing industry.

Our product will be officially launched during Hannover Messe 2017. From March until November 2016 we developed beta testing with different companies and research institutions. Their feedback has greatly contributed to the improvement of our product. Our sensor was recognized as a highly innovative product in the CODE_n startup Contest 2016, where Roboception won the Photonics 4.0 Award.

Roboception’s product is part of the equipment that the applicants can use within the well-known KUKA Innovation Award, and in fact it was chosen by 4 out of 5 participants to develop their application scenarios in manufacturing scenarios. However, we are also already active in a variety of domains outside the industrial automation and are working with customers around the globe in domains such as logistics, agriculture, healthcare and service robotics.

Our business is developing in a very promising way, and we are confident to continue growing in the months and years to come.